TO MAKE YOU FEEL COMFORTABLE | #PostUtopia

‘To make you feel comfortable’ develops in context of a smart city, a narrative about the resident A who lives in one of the smart homes.

The structure of the narrative follows the semantics of the word „smart”, which means intelligent, clever or elegant as well as pain. The narration is interrupted by advertising blocks.

‘To make you feel comfortable’ focuses on the conditions of communication. The characteristic of a Smart City or a Smart Home is that all things are in constant exchange with each other through the Internet of Things. The main objective is to create the greatest possible degree of sustainability as well as safety. On the other hand a permanent data collection means that the entire behavior of the city dwellers can be monitored.

The texts developed for the video are e.g. based on statements on data protection of the former Google CEO Eric Schmidt as well as on a presentation of Rem Koolhaas on the topic of the Smart City from the year 2014.

Duration: 09’18”

Julia Weissenberg (DE)

Julia Weissenberg, born in 1982, studied at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne, Germany, where she graduated with honors in 2012. Her work has regularly been included in exhibitions and screenings at museums, art spaces and video/ short film festivals including Ludwig Forum Aachen, Bundeskunsthalle Bonn, Skulpture Museum Glaskasten Marl, Museo de la Ciudad Mexico, Screen Space Melbourne, Int’l short Film festival Oberhausen, B3 Biennale Frankfurt, Int’l Short Film Festival – Curta Cinema Brasil, Kasseler Dokumentarfilm und Videofest, European Short Film Festival at MIT Boston etc. In 2014 she had her first institutional solo exhibition at the artothek, Cologne. Weissenberg has received awards including the Chargesheimer Prize for Media Arts of the City of Cologne, a working grant at Schloss Ringenberg and she took part in Artist in Residence Programmes in Bergen, Seoul and Beijing.